Seven Years of Bad Policy: Government Maintains Offshore Drilling Ban

Nicolas Loris / December 01, 2010

As the rest of the world continues to drill off its respective coasts, the United States is heading in the opposite direction.

The Obama Administration announced that the eastern Gulf of Mexico and the Atlantic and Pacific coasts will not be part of the government’s 2012–2017 Outer Continental Shelf program, effectively banning drilling in those areas for the next seven years.

The decision is a reversal from the President’s announcement in March in which he opened access to waters for offshore drilling in the Atlantic and eastern Gulf of Mexico. But even that decision did more to tighten offshore oil and gas explorations than open it. (more…)